Pretty Enough

Smurfette was a plain-looking, blue girl when she was first created by Gargamel. It’s the Papa Smurf who used his spells and magic and made her the blonde sassy chic that she is, the vixen who disrupted the peace among the Smurfs. Who really is to blame here? The Smurfette for setting fire into tiny blue hearts? Or Gargamel, her original creator? Is it the Smurfs who forgot everything else when faced with a beauty like they never saw before? Or is it the Papa Smurf who has the biggest fault, for taking something ordinary and turning that into something every one desires?

Well… My Papa Smurf was my mom.

My mom, when she was young, she was one of those women, who never had to pay a fine for making a wrong turn. One of those women, who never had to wait to be seated in a restaurant that was too crowded, even though she didn’t have a reservation. One of those women, who could have been a famous model if her father had said ‘yes’ when that guy from the modeling agency had approached them on the street. One of those women, who could have been much more but didn’t. And that’s where I enter the picture.

I wasn’t born pretty. As a baby, I was plain, ordinary, a baby with nothing spectacular. As I grew older, I became less than plain, not ugly really, but not a child you would call easy-on-the-eye either. And, when I look back, I realize that I was happy although back then, I thought I wasn’t. I remember feeling envious of the blonde girl in the neighborhood, how she would have attention wherever she went. I remember, other kids, making fun of me because my feet were too big. I remember crying about it. I remember praying to God to make me prettier. Well… It wasn’t God but it was my mom.

From the first moment she learned she was having a girl, she had her baby’s whole life planned ahead. That girl was going to be beautiful, as beautiful as she was before she gained pounds, before the wrinkles in the corner of eyes were visible. So, I can only imagine that it must have come quite as a shock to her when she held me the first time and realize that I took more after my father, who was a chubby little man with an Harvard education and loads of money. She probably thought that this was just because I was a baby, that over time I’d get pretty. But me being this ungrateful little brat that I was, I didn’t get prettier. Now, that must have pissed her quite a bit to see me getting chubbier, my hair spikier, my teeth more crooked.

When I was around 5, my father left us with a big alimony yet no reachable phone number. That’s when she decided to take control over mother nature. I was put on a diet, involving carrots and oranges, rich in vitamins, low in anything a kid likes. She had read somewhere that milk was great for the bones. So, I drank milk instead of water. Somebody told her that bending your knees as a child while sleeping, is not good for the shape of the legs. So, she started waking up every 2 hours to come over to my room and correct my legs. She signed me up for ballet, basketball and swimming classes. She got me braces. She got me vitamins. She got me fish capsules. Beauty masks. Spa treatments. Fitness classes. Liposuction.

By the age of 15, I was tall, fit and beautiful. Just as she planned. One thing she forgot to get me though was friends or boys to like me. I wasn’t allowed to date anyone or go out with people because:

A. I would eat junk food and god forbid, like it.
B. I would have sex and god forbid, like it.
C. I am not even going to mention drugs, cigarettes or alcohol and god forbid, me liking them.

So, yes, I was tall, fit and beautiful but also very lonely. I suppose that was just another thing she had planned. And she had all her arguments crystal clear to back that decision up, whenever I would start feeling the lack of other people in my life. She would tell me that, even though the beautiful never pay fines, they don’t have it easy, like everybody thinks because beauty creates turmoil. Women who are not as pretty, can’t handle being constantly under the shadow. She would say that, if you’re too pretty, your only way for making friends, is to hang out with the equally pretty. But then, there is the competition. Helen, Athena and Aphrodite can only be friends when there is no Paris around to give an apple to the prettiest one. Once that apple is given, that friendship is fucked forever. As for boys, she would tell me that all they want is to get in my pants. After that, I would be worthless because looks are only good to seduce and attract, they don’t guarantee that your love will last. I should just look at my father, if I needed proof. She would then conclude, that it wasn’t her that was causing me to be lonely, it was my destiny because I was beautiful but my beauty would soon pay me back for all this.

“Soon.”

I kept wondering when that soon was because seriously, I was getting sick of it. It wasn’t a happy life, really. I would have preferred to be a plain Smurfette and have people who love me for what I am, rather than being the cause of jealousy and heartache all around me, without actually doing anything. I would have loved for people to give me a chance but as my mom said, when they look at me, all they’d see would be a beautiful girl with a lot of “but”s.

She is pretty but she’s stupid.
She is pretty but she is not friendly.
She is pretty but she is looking for a rich guy.
She is pretty but she is an air-head.
She is pretty but she has a crazy mother.
She is pretty but she wants to kill herself.

I hoped that when I became a super model and got famous, this whole thing would stop and she’d finally leave me alone. So when she brought me to this modeling agency as my 16th birthday gift, I was happy that it was now time for me to become what she never did and get it over with.

The agency was set in an elegant office with a lot of fine-looking women running around. The secretary who looked like she was ready to do a Vogue cover shot, showed us in the office of the main modeling executive, or whatever her title was. The woman, Veronica, was simply put, gorgeous. She was around her 40’s, had bluish black hair, ice-cold blue eyes and a body to die for. More importantly, she had that aura about her, that je-ne-sais-quoi I never saw in a real person outside the movies. She had something that made her out-of-this-world beautiful and I felt ugly next to her, I felt that my mother was ugly next to her, the room was ugly, everything was ugly but her.

Veronica looked at my pictures, took a glance at me and nodded. She then turned towards my mother and started talking like I wasn’t there.

“Yes… She’s pretty Mrs. Laney. But… I’m not sure she has that thing we are looking for.”
“What do you mean?” my mother said.
“I mean, Mrs. Laney that she is pretty, just not pretty enough. Cute, could be a better word for her.”
“Cute?”
“Yes, cute. She could… you know… enter a pageant or something. Maybe she can get a crown, even. Just not super model material, I’m sorry.”
“Not super model material?”
“More like prom-queen material.”

With that, Veronica ended the conversation. The secretary came in and walked us out. On our drive home, my mom was using all the curse words in her vocabulary on Veronica. She kept going on and on about how that agency sucked anyways and that we would be better off going to this other agency and there, they would see my beauty and blah blah blah…

All that time, I was watching myself in the side mirror and thinking about Veronica. I had understood what she meant. I didn’t have what she had and I would never have it. My mom, though, refused to see what I saw at the age of 16.

After the Veronica incident, we kept going to different agencies, kept meeting more Veronica’s who kept telling us the same things all over again, more or less in the same format. The drive- home was always the same and all that time, I just couldn’t figure out why it wasn’t enough for my mom that I just wasn’t pretty enough.

One day, after another heart-breaking agency visit for my mom, I told her I just didn’t want to do this any longer. She snapped, of course, started saying I was ungrateful, that she wouldn’t have this kind of behavior in her house, after all she did for me and this and that. The last words I remember from her, was me being just like my dad and how us two, made her miserable. With that, I left the house and started walking. It was already getting dark but, a walk, I thought, could help me clear my head. So, I walked and I walked. I walked for hours. I passed through houses, cars, more cars, stores that were closed, stores that were open, people, more people, even more people. I walked until I didn’t know where I was anymore, until nothing seemed familiar.

I kept walking until I ended up in area with a lot of neon signs. I stopped in front of one of those signs that said: “Amateur night” There were a lot of guys in front of it. They looked at me with funny eyes.

“You going in?” said one of the guys.
“I don’t know” I said.
“Well if you know, let me know. Because if you’re going in, I definitely am.”

He was cute and had a nice smile. So, I smiled back and said, what the hell.

Inside, I realized where I was but I didn’t care. It was time for all those ballet lessons to pay up. I got my name on the list and waited for my turn. When I got on the stage, I danced and took my clothes off. Everybody was looking at me, thinking I was hot. I was, for sure, pretty enough that night.

I spent the prize money I won on taking shots with the cute guy from outside who told me I was beautiful. I didn’t resist when he dragged me into the smelly bathroom of that smelly club. He was still saying that I was hot, when he was taking my panties off. When he was unzipping his pants. When he was entering me.

When we were done, he didn’t even realize it was my first time. As I was picking up my panties from the floor, I told him that I should get back soon. He told me that I should give him a call sometime. I left the joint with his number and the remnants of my prize money.

Back home, my mother, worried sick, was crying. I told her that I finally found a place that saw my beauty, that I found people who thought I was pretty. Pretty enough.